European League of Institutes of the Arts

The European League of Institutes of the Arts (ELIA) is an independent membership organization representing approximately 350 higher arts education institutions in 45 countries. It was founded in 1990 to represent, advocate and promote higher arts education and to create platforms of discussion and exchange at European as well as local and wider levels. Its office is located in Amsterdam. ELIA is funded by the European Commission.[1]

History

ELIA emerged from a conference organized in Amsterdam in 1990, Imagination and Diversity, aimed to promote cooperation in art education around Europe. The organiser of the conference and founder of ELIA, Carla Delfos, is still the organization’s Executive Director. She was knighted Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 1993, and received honorary doctorates from Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen in 2001, and Columbia College Chicago in 2009.

In 1991, ELIA helped founding the European Forum for Arts and Heritage (EFAH). In the same year, a conference in Budapest, in the wake of the fall of the Iron Curtain, opened up vistas for collaboration with Eastern Europe. At ELIA’s second General Assembly in Strasbourg 1992, the Manifesto for Arts Education in Europe was approved. A new version was approved in 2000. In 1996, ELIA was designated to organize a ‘Thematic Network for Higher Arts Education’ as part of the SOCRATES programme. Thematic Networks for closer collaboration and research have since been central to ELIA’s activities.[2]

Following the Bologna Declaration in 1999, these networks have been crucial in facilitating discussion and taking a position on the implications of the Bologna Process for higher arts education.[3] To this end, ELIA has been cooperating closely with the European Association of Conservatoires (AEC), publishing four position papers together.

In 2008, ELIA received a European grant for a new multi-year project, Art Futures. It was renewed in 2011.

Structure

ELIA has three types of membership: full, associate, and non-European. The members are represented by the Representative Board, max. 21 members, which is elected by the General Assembly. From this Representative Board, an Executive Group of 5-9 members is elected, which monitors the activities carried out by the office and various steering groups. The Executive Group includes the President, Vice-President, Treasurer, and Executive Director. Board members are elected for a period of two years. Members of the Board and Executive Group can be re-elected up to a maximum of ten years; the President only once.[4]

Presidents
Executive Director
Vice-President
Treasurer

Activities

ELIA’s activities include:

ELIA is deeply concerned with the implications of the Bologna Process for higher arts education: it has published a handbook and various position papers on the topic, and contributed to European projects in Quality Assurance and the assessment of Art degrees.[5] Moreover, it has surveyed the development of innovative MA and PhD programmes, particularly in the newly emergent field of Artistic Research, which has been the topic of a 2005 conference and 2008 strategy paper.

Conferences

ELIA organizes three events that recur biennially:

Apart from these multi-day events, ELIA has organized many symposia and workshops, and other large conferences, as in Chicago (2010), Tallinn (2007), Berlin (2005), and Tilburg (2003).

Biennial venues

Projects

ELIA’s most recent projects are:

In previous years, ELIA has organized masterclasses in new music performance and voice training for actors, staged panoramas in Athens and London, and conducted research on employabity skills for art graduates and on gender equality in arts education. A present issue is the role of art schools with regard to the Creative Industries.

Networks

Since 1996, there have been consecutive thematic networks of ELIA member institutions. These have been concerned with implementing and assessing the Bologna Process as well as with exploring new challenges for higher arts education. Currently, ELIA and GradCAM (Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media, Dublin) are jointly coordinating the SHARE academic network for research in the arts. 35 graduate schools and institutions engaged in third-cycle research in the arts take part.

Previous networks have been:

See also

Publications

External links

References

  1. ↑
  2. ↑ Schneller, Chripa, Irina Lungu & Bernd Wächter (eds): Handbook for International Associations in Higher Education, Academic Cooperation Association, 2009, pp. 64-66
  3. ↑ Ophuysen, Truus: "Tapping into the Potential of Higher Arts Education in Europe"; O'Brien, Tamiko: "Tuning Fine Art?", in: Félix, Antonio et al. (eds.), Las ensenanzas de Bellas Artes en el Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior / Fine Arts Training Programs and the European Higher Education Area, Polytechnical University of Valencia Press, 2009
  4. ↑ Pulbere, Radu: ELIA, Editura Limes, Cluj-Napoca 2008
  5. ↑ Österreichische Wissenschaftsrat: Empfehlung zur Entwicklung der Kunstuniversitäten in Österreich, 2009, pp. 35-36
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